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“An Important and Timely Book” Professor Nigel Dodd, London School of Economics

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“An Important and Timely Book” Professor Nigel Dodd, London School of Economics “An important and timely book” Professor Nigel Dodd, London School of Economics Designing, developing & delivering community currencies Forewords by Molly Scott Cato & Nigel Dodd People Powered Money is the result of a project running from 2012-2015, Community Currencies in Action (CCIA). Part-funded by the European Union’s Interreg project, CCIA is a transnational project in the community currency field, bringing together expert partners from across north-west Europe and co-ordinating six pilot currencies in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Drawing on the learnings of these pilots and the broader currency innovation movement, this book provides policymakers and practitioners alike with the information and advice to successfully implement a currency project in their communities. With the right PART 01 C/02 01 PART knowledge and support, these can bring significant economic, social and environmental benefits to their users. Often confined to the margins, community currencies have the potential to become a normal part of economic life. CCIA hopes this book will enable a new generation of community currencies and support their emergence into the mainstream. PART 01 C/02 01 PART 04 PEOPLE POWERED MONEY PEOPLE POWERED MONEY 05 Designing, developing & delivering community currencies People Powered Money Designing, developing and delivering community currencies Acknowledgements First edition published in paperback in Great Britain in 2015 by This book would not have been possible without the commitment New Economics Foundation and contributions of our CCIA partners and many external experts 10 Salamanca Place who have worked on the topic for many years, as well as, of course, the London SE1 7HB (0)20 7820 6300 funding contributed by the European Union’s Interreg 4b NorthWest [email protected] Europe programme. www.neweconomics.org We would like to acknowledge, first and foremost, those who helped to write People Powered Money, especially Leander Bindewald, Alice Martin, Duncan McCann, Tony Greenham and Duncan Thomas. This book also draws on recent community currency guidebooks in This book is Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- Dutch and French by our colleagues in Belgium and the Netherlands: ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good Guide pratique de monnaies complémentaires (2013), written any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest by Antoine Attout, Léone Clerc, Amandine Cloot, Antoine Fain, Lise opportunity. No responsibility can be accepted by the publisher for action Disneur, Arnaud Marchand and Laurence Roland and published by taken as a result of information contained in this publication. the Réseau Financement Alternatif in Brussels with the support of the A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Wallonian government. Maak je buurt uitmuntend! (2014), written by Bernard Lietaer, Anne Print ISBN: 978-1-908506-78-8 | ePub ISBN: 978-1-908506-80-1 Snick and Edgar Kampers, published by the Flemish government. This book also builds on the CCIA Community Currency Implementation Framework, which pooled the experience and knowledge of our partners and of those on whose shoulders we stand. For this we are especially indebted to the work of Henk van Arkel of the Social Trade Organisation (NL), John Rogers (UK/DE), registered charity number 1055254 Arthur Brock of the Metacurrency Project (USA), Ludwig Schuster © April 2015 New Economics Foundation and the late Margrit Kennedy of the Money Network Alliance (DE), to mention just a few. We are also very grateful to Nigel Dodd and Molly Scott Cato for contributing forewords. Endorsements from such well-known and respected figures demonstrate how far the community currency NEF supports The Forest Stewardship Council [FSC], the leading international movement has come in gaining recognition and establishing its forest certification organisation. credibility within the economics discipline and field of public policy. All NEF publications are printed on FSC–certified paper. Last but not least, we would like to thank Philipp Degens, Jens Project Managed by EDDEPRO Services Martignoni, Ken Barlow, Susan Steed, Julia Slay, Lucie Stephens, Cover illustration Alex Lucas Carlos De Freitas and Brett Scott, who have given priceless feedback Design and layout A-Side Studio and support to ensure that the book is not only comprehensive Copy edited by Alexis Taylor regarding its subject matter, but written and presented in an Printed and bound in Great Britain by Blackmore, Shaftesbury SP7 8PX accessible and stimulating manner. PEOPLE POWERED MONEY PEOPLE POWERED MONEY CONTENTS PEOPLE POWERED MONEY 011 16 CCIA Partners 18 Forewords 20 Introduction 22 What is in the book? 24 Key Part One: How can money better meet our aims? Chapter 01 30 REBIRTH OF AN OLD TECHNOLOGY 34 The historic legacy 35 Modern grassroots origins 38 The new millennials 39 Today’s cross-sector fusion Chapter 02 42 Why – COMMUNITY CURRENCIES: PART 01 C/02 01 PART MONEY WITH A PURPOSE 44 Democratising services and organisations 49 Supporting the SME economy 58 Countering inequality and social exclusion 63 Addressing environmental impacts Chapter 03 68 Who – CURRENCIES FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE 70 Stakeholders in a currency system 71 Levels of engagement 79 Challenges of a multi-stakeholder project 81 Co-producing a currency 012 PEOPLE POWERED MONEY PEOPLE POWERED MONEY 013 Part Two: Innovating money – a how to Chapter 07 136 THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD Chapter 04 COMMUNICATIONS 88 THE PROCESS OF DESIGNING A CURRENCY 137 Target audiences 90 Non-linear 138 Key messages 92 Phase A: Planning 141 Get the message out 93 Phase B: Building – Piloting 146 Maintaining a network 94 Phase C: Continuity options Chapter 08 Chapter 05 148 Evaluation – defining and 98 What – choosing the key featuRES MEASURING IMPACT OF A COMMUNITY CURRENCY 150 Getting started 99 Function 151 What to measure 101 Denomination & transaction medium 151 When to measure 104 Issuance 152 Who to involve 108 Backing 153 How to measure 109 Design specifics PART 01 C/02 01 PART 113 Security Chapter 09 114 Market 158 CONCLUSION – MORE CURRENCIES ARE BETTER THAN ONE Chapter 06 160 End notes 116 HOW – IMPLEMENTING AND OPERATING 162 Further reading & resources A CURRENCY 170 Glossary 118 Organisational structure and governance 180 Index 120 Finance 126 Legal & compliance 130 ICT 014 PEOPLE POWERED MONEY PEOPLE POWERED MONEY 015 CCIA partners Amsterdam East Municipality: a local authority serving 112,000 New Economics Foundation (NEF): a UK think-tank promoting residents of a long-deprived area of Amsterdam. Committed social, economic and environmental justice. NEF is the UK’s leading to investing in social, urban and economic issues, Amsterdam not-for-profit research institute in the study of money, credit East supports the Makkie, a CCIA pilot currency seeking to build and complementary currencies. Within CCIA, NEF have led on community engagement and empower citizens to create the change evaluation and communications methods, research into legal and they want for their community. compliance issues, and the production of the collaborative online tool: community-currency.info. Crédit Municipal de Nantes: a publicly owned enterprise with an economic and social mission, offering credit and mutual savings Qoin: a Dutch social enterprise, specialising in the design and schemes to residents of the city of Nantes. Crédit Municipal de Nantes implementation of community currencies. As part of CCIA, Qoin have plays a strategic role in improving the quality of life of the community it developed a flexible and functional software platform, Qoinware, that is serves and manages the SoNantes, a CCIA-supported currency. currently used by several community currencies, including the SoNantes and the Brixton Pound. They also launched their own co-operatively owned business-to-business CCIA pilot currency: TradeQoin. Lambeth Council: a local authority in South London, UK. In collaboration with CCIA and the Brixton Pound, Lambeth Council is working to integrate the community currency into council services Spice: a social enterprise originating in Wales but now working across and promote its wide usage. This collaboration is an integral part the UK, Spice develops agency time-credit systems for communities of Lambeth’s aim to become Britain’s first Co-operative Council – and public- and voluntary-sector agencies. Having already proven meaning that it will work with local people to design, manage, and highly successful in addressing inequalities, building stronger deliver services together. communities and empowering citizens, Spice’s programmes are being scaled up in partnership with CCIA. Limburg.net: an inter-municipal, publicly owned waste-disposal company responsible for waste prevention and collection in the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA): the voice of the province of Limburg and the city of Diest. Together with CCIA, Limburg. voluntary sector in Wales, representing and campaigning for net expanded their community currency, the e-Portemonnee, to voluntary organisations, individuals and communities. WCVA is lead encourage environmentally sustainable practices by individuals and partner for CCIA and has monitored the operations of the partnership, businesses across the whole region. as well as co-ordinating member organisations. 016 PEOPLE POWERED MONEY PEOPLE
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